King James Version · Egypt and Sinai
Exodus 5
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And afterward and went in, and told , Thus saith of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in . And said, Who is , that I should his voice to let Israel go? I know not , neither will I let Israel go. And they said, The of the hath met with us: let us go, we thee, three days’ journey into , and unto our ; lest he fall upon us with pestilence, or with . And the king of said unto them, Wherefore do ye, and , let the people from their works? get you unto your burdens. And said, Behold, the people of the land now are many, and ye make them rest from their burdens. And commanded the same day the taskmasters of the people, and their officers, saying, Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as heretofore: let them go and gather straw for themselves. And the tale of the bricks, which they did make heretofore, ye shall lay upon them; ye shall not diminish ought thereof: for they be idle; therefore they cry, saying, Let us go and to our . Let there more work be laid upon the men, that they may labour therein; and let them not regard words. And the taskmasters of the people went out, and their officers, and they spake to the people, saying, Thus saith , I will not give you straw. Go ye, get you straw where ye can find it: yet not ought of your work shall be diminished. So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of to gather stubble instead of straw. 13And the taskmasters hasted them, saying, Fulfil your works, your daily tasks, as when there was straw. And the officers of the , which ’s taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, and demanded, Wherefore have ye not fulfilled your task in making brick both yesterday and to day, as heretofore? 15Then the officers of the came and cried unto , saying, Wherefore dealest thou thus with thy servants? 16There is no straw given unto thy servants, and they say to us, Make brick: and, behold, thy servants are beaten; but the fault is in thine own people. But he said, Ye are idle, ye are idle: therefore ye say, Let us go and do to . Go therefore now, and work; for there shall no straw be given you, yet shall ye the tale of bricks. And the officers of the did see that they were in evil case, after it was said, Ye shall not minish ought from your bricks of your daily task. 20And they met and , who stood in , as they came forth from : And they said unto them, look upon you, and judge; because ye have made our savour to be abhorred in the eyes of , and in the eyes of his servants, to put a in their hand to us. And returned unto , and said, , wherefore hast thou so evil entreated this people? why is it that thou hast sent me? For since I came to to speak in thy name, he hath done evil to this people; neither hast thou thy people at all.
The 1611 translation, public domain. Its original printing included the Apocrypha, which is why the deuterocanonical books can be read here. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · Egypt and Sinai, 1450 BC to 1200 BC ›
Israel in and then out of Egypt, at a period when Egypt was an imperial power that also controlled Canaan. The nation is formed as a people with a law before it has any land.
- Egypt
- The New Kingdom at its imperial peak, with a professional army, a chariot corps, and control reaching up through Canaan. Ramesses II reigns for sixty-six years and covers the country in monuments to himself. Egyptian power in this period is the reason Canaan is garrisoned rather than free.
- The Hittites
- The other superpower, in what is now Turkey, and Egypt's rival for the Levant. The two fight the largest chariot battle of the ancient world at Kadesh, then sign a treaty whose text survives from both sides. Hittite treaty form, with its historical prologue, stipulations, witnesses, blessings, and curses, is the shape the Sinai covenant takes, which is one of the stronger arguments for the antiquity of that material.
- The Aegean
- Mycenaean Greece: warrior kings in stone citadels at Mycenae and Pylos, keeping palace accounts in Linear B. The world of the Trojan War stories, whatever lies behind them.
- Further afield
- The Shang dynasty in China is casting extraordinary bronzes and writing questions to its ancestors on ox bones. In Mesoamerica the Olmec are beginning the first civilisation of the Americas.